RETAILED BY MAWE'S, CIRCA 1825

The 'Grecian' black circular table, on plinth-supported pillar of Derbyshire marble, has its mosaic-inlaid wreath of richly polychromed marbles banded by an engraved ribbon combining the British oak with the floral badges emblematic of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. It is likely to have formed one of the exhibition pieces of the Matlock Museum established under the patronage of the Derbyshire mine-owner William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (d.1858), who had added to his remarkable mineral collection at Chatsworth, Derbyshire during his 1825 embassy to Russia and at the 1827 sale of the Russian court physician, as well as by purchases from the London dealer Henry Heuland (d.1856) (N. Barker, The Devonshire Inheritance Exhibition, Virginia, 2003, no. 198). The table-top may have been designed by William Adam (d.1873) following his taking over in 1831 of the Ashford Black Marble Works and Old Royal Museum, Matlock that had previously been managed by John Mawe (d.1829) (J.M. Tomlinson, Derbyshire Black Marble, 1996).